I grew up in a house full of guitars, as my father was forever building electric guitars on the families kitchen table. I spent my teenage years trying to tame a 100 watt Marshall JCM 800 and matching 4 x 12 cab in a bedroom, only just large enough for a bed. I’d bought it not REALLY understanding exactly how loud 100 watts is. At this young age I started to experiment with recording and MIDI and cut my teeth on Pro 24 and Notator on an Atari synced to a Foster R8 with an MTC-1.
Playing in bands and working in recording studios for many years, I learned to mix, record and eventually worked as a sound engineer. I also worked for many of the UKs large pro audio retailers, where I helped to set up DAWs in everything from local studios, music technology colleges all the way through to world famous recording facilities like Air Studios and The Strongroom. As I couldn’t help myself, I even owned my own recording studio in London for a while. There I learnt a lot about recording guitars, dealing with bands and getting quality results anyhow.
Over the years I have acquired a very sizeable guitar collection, which includes many guitars that I have built myself. I’m a total hoarder of effect pedals and valve amps and I’m a certified guitar geek. So there are not many that I have not owned at least once. Whether Parker Fly guitars or Klon Centaur pedals, I’ve had them all. Now running the annual Analogue To Digital music show in the UK, plus the Vintage Guitar Fair, I get to be busy throughout the year and also get to rub shoulders with many other guitar lovers, luthiers, manufacturers and pro players.
My tastes in music includes everything from Dinosaur Jr to Squarepusher.
Write him: jef (at) gearnews (com)
Vox have come up with a limited run of the AC Custom amps, with, ahem, a super exciting new colour of 'Maroon Bronco' -
can this reinvigorate our interest in these guitar amps?
This limited run of 300 guitars is made for the European market and celebrates 30 years since Whitesnake had a number one with 'Here I go Again' in the US charts (marketing schtick alert!)
Have you got money to burn? Do you like buying pointless guitar gadgets? Then I think I have found the product for you to waste your money on.
A truly unique offset guitar design, with a whole range of colours and pickup configurations available: Will this Texas based guitar builder push the guitar design forwards?
A hot-rodded muscle car-style, single-pickup tone machine? The brightly coloured SuperRev series is available for a limited time, are designed for the boy racers of the guitar world...
Er, what? Never mind all the dotty marketing hooey, the KFC Sauce Dispenser is an interesting if quirky take on a clean boost pedal brought to you by the eccentric genius of Dr No and Koen Fu. Dig it!
With the official demise of Black Sabbath and their final gig played, we are now left with a new signature bass wah for the man that provided the low end for the world's original Heavy Metal band.
Two new pedals from Orange! The Getaway Driver and Fur Coat Fuzz are both priced really well and offer some cool vintage fuzz and drive tones.
Taking the AC and RC pedals from Xotic Effects, combining them into one unit to make a limited edition signature model effects pedal for guitarist Oz Noy.
Mike Vickery has made a reputation for making some of the best Big Muff fuzz boxes in the boutique pedal world. Now he has taken on the fabled Marshall BluesBreaker circuit.
This American boutique pedal builder has just updated one of its most popular overdrive pedal designs to offer a V2 version of the OCD that sports a few subtle enhancements.
HOT
This new pedal has been accidentally leaked by a US guitar dealer and is now out in the wild - Zzounds and ED prove you can buy gear that doesn't even exist yet - the Data Corrupter!
Stomp Under Foot seems on a mission to offer boutique pedals for reasonable money - and the latest Full Powered Halo model combines two old favourites from their existing line-up. Alert: great-sounding demo ...
With 4 Overdrive Channels, 3 Fuzz Channels and 4 Distortion Channels the Vector uses digital control and a fully analogue signal path to achieve its variety.
With a such a simple design, the lunaReclipse pedal from boutique pedal builders Fuzzrocious has plenty to offer, with a grand total of 12 different gain stages on tap for you to play with.
A new enhanced version of Keeley's most popular 'Magnetic Echo' effects pedal, the Caverns. Want to play your guitar in a huge cave? All you need now are some bats!
Slash, Gibson's new Global Brand Ambassador, has got a new range of very green signature guitars for 2017 - with a hefty surcharge if you want his scrawl on it...
The Sovtek-era Green Russian Big Muff is being relaunched in a modern-day nano housing - this great-sounding fuzz pedal from the '90s is finally being reborn!
ESP has come in line with worldwide CITES regulations and they now have an official page on their site explaining how they will be achieving this in 2017.
Walrus Audio has secretly built an Easter Egg function into its pedal - with the right button combinations, you can access a hidden 5th delay mode!
Utilising Russian fighter aircraft components to squeeze valve technology into a smaller format overdrive pedal, will this new Kickstarter campaign take off?
An all-white limited edition Stratocaster based around the Supreme skateboard brand has just dropped on Instagram - and it looks like it could be very expensive indeed.
A new dynamic distortion pedal designed for Greek producer Nikolas Farmakalidis, the lupine-themed Nikaos drive pedal has some great tones on tap, all of which can be accessed via your guitar's volume knob.
When you make excellent guitars and undoubtedly some of the nicest boutique models in current production in the world, why would you ruin them with a poor relic finish?